Last Thursday evening Batemans Bay Rotary hosted Brett Henderson to talk about his most topical PhD on what happened before and after the 2019/20 Black Summer Bushfires in the Eurobodalla.

Summary

Kathryn Maxwell attended the presentation and contributes the following summary.

“I attended a presentation by Brett Henderson on his learnings from his PhD. Brett Henderson was a member of the NSW Police Force for 35 years, an Emergency Controller for a number of disasters and is currently an SES Volunteer.

He has recently completed his PHD on the topic of Sharing the Responsibility for Emergency Management – focus on the Eurobodalla

His thesis is about the 2019/20 period of the Black Summer Bushfires.

Physical damage included:

· 510 houses

· 80 facilities

· 859 out buildings

· 470km roadways

· 80% of Eurobodalla impacted by fire

· 90% of the national parks were impacted by fire.

· Loss of power and telecommunications.

· Loss of over $150m or 13% of the economy.

Lots of indirect costs:

· Estimated to take 42 years to recover from black Friday fires emotionally.

· Intergenerational trauma experience from bushfires

Brett undertook extensive interviews, read submissions to the various inquiries and secondary data collection. He read 2100 articles, 42,000 pages of reference materials.

Communications before, during and after the bushfires

· Local Emergency Management Committee not engaging the community. Neither was the Council.

· Council’s emergency plan at the time was dated 2013. Currently dated 2019.

· Lack or preparedness by Eurobodalla Council.

· Amenities were locked.

· Council staff were instructed that it was business as usual from early January 2020. This took precedence over relief.

· Absence of leadership

· Evacuation Centres were described as humanitarian disasters and parlour.

· RFS only engagement with the community was at the community days. They also suffered from a lack of preparedness and planning.

· There was no way of communicating information and operational issues during the emergency.

· Many did not know that the Evacuation Centres existed.

· No one knew the Local Emergency Management Committee existed. There were no plans, no preparation. A total failure.

· The NSW State Emergency Management Plans says you need a local voice but there is no mechanism in the Act. For example Section 28 – no community members required for the Local Emergency Management Committee.

· The advantages of spending on prevention and preparation are well known. The NSW government still focuses its expenditure on the response and capital equipment to facilitate a response.